As these dramatic and world-changing days unfold, those who are conscious of the nature of these events must ask what contribution they can make to America’s future in this context. We all, each and every one of us, can and MUST do whatever possible to take advantage of this EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY to wake people up to the nature of the system and organize the people to DEMAND real change.

People are fired up. By November 22nd, after the election, the nation’s situation may be dire indeed. Do we, those who are clearest about the causes and consequences of America’s plight, have the capacity to lead the American people in a clean break with the past and a renewal of our best traditions? Are we truly a R3VOLUTION or just a historical footnote?

YOU are and must be a LEADER. Shake off your fears. Cast aside your obstacles. Mount the stage of history and contest the future! THE TIME IS NOW...OR NEVER! WHAT YOU CAN DO

It is crucial that we begin NOW to generate a tide that will crest to its fullest on November 22nd. Here are some suggestions for how you can take up the gauntlet and make your mark on history. These are just SOME ideas...cut loose and get out there and MAKE IT HAPPEN!

1. INTERNET OUTREACH: Every online community needs an END THE FED! Group organizing for 11/22. Do you lead or are you an active member of one of these groups or others? Please get discussion and organizing started for “End the Fed!” in your internet space right now!

• Ron Paul Forums • Daily Paul • Campaign for Liberty • Restore the Republic • Break the Matrix • Facebook • MySpace • Meetup Groups • Online spaces for Libertarian, Green, Constitution Party, Ralph Nader and any other coalition organizations • Get an “End the Fed!” banner or badge placed on every web site possible • Text comments at blogs, YouTube and elsewhere about November 22nd • Send an email to all your contacts announcing the November 22nd End the Fed! protests and urging them to join up and get involved

2. LOCAL OUTREACH:Your city needs to be bannered with “End the Fed! Nov. 22nd”; distribution of flyers at public meetings attracting a potentially open-minded audience; tabling at college campuses and public squares, post offices and supermarkets; invite to participate and build a coalition with local peace, anti-war, anti-establishment groups...

3. NATIONAL and LOCAL OUTREACH: We need to create the biggest possible coalition for November 22nd. Let’s bring everyone within the Freedom Movement together for this one. Let’s also take Ron Paul’s cue and involve conscious people from across the political spectrum who agree on this one issue: END THE FED! This needs to be done on both the NATIONAL and LOCAL levels.

This is by no means exhaustive, but these are the MINIMUM tasks which any serious protest movement should be executing. If we are to perform on November 22nd, we must execute. The rubber must meet the road with authority. Only YOU can do this. Do not look over your shoulder for someone else to take responsibility. We either rise to the challenge now, or we fall to Tyranny soon. The choice is ours.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The Federal Reserve and other major central banks tookunprecedented steps Monday to pour hundreds of billions of dollars in additionalliquidity into money markets left paralyzed by fears of further bank failures in theUnited States and Europe.

The Fed said it was boosting the size of its dollar-swap arrangements to $620billion, up from $290 billion previously. The agreement, with nine central banks,allows authorities to provide short-term dollar loans to commercial banks in aneffort to ease funding woes that have resulted from reluctance by commercial banks tolend short-term funds to each other through the interbank market.

The Fed also increased the size of its liquidity auctions and announced two forwardauctions to provide funding over the year-end period.

"These steps are undertaken to mitigate pressures evident in the term fundingmarkets in the United States and abroad," the Fed said in a statement.

"By committing to provide a very large quantity of term funding, the Fed actionsshould reassure financial market participants that financing will be availableagainst good collateral, lessening concerns about funding and rollover risk," theU.S. central bank said.

Included in the Fed's swap lines are the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, theBank of Japan, the National Bank of Denmark, the European Central Bank, the Bank ofNorway, the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Bank of Sweden and the Swiss NationalBank.

The biggest move doubles the amount of dollars available to the ECB, to $240 billion.

The Fed noted that dollar borrowing rates have been higher abroad than in the UnitedStates. The bigger swap lines "should help to improve the distribution of dollarliquidity around the globe," the Fed statement said.

Against a backdrop of turmoil in the markets, key short-term borrowing rates rose,while spreads that measure tensions in money markets widened significantly. A widerspread signals increased reluctance by banks to lend to each other.

U.S. Treasurys rallied as frazzled investors sought out the safety ofgovernment-backed bonds. See Bond Report.

Earlier, the British government's nationalization of mortgage bank Bradford &amp;Bingley, a rescue by three governments of troubled Belgian-Dutch bank Fortis and aconsortium-led bailout of German property lender Hypo Real Estate trumped any returnof confidence in the interbank lending market stemming from agreement between theBush administration and Congress on a $700 billion package designed to stabilize thefinancial sector, analysts said.

Across the Atlantic, banking giant Wachovia Corp. succumbed to the global creditcrunch. Regulators announced the firm's banking operations were being acquired byCitigroup . See full story.

Also Monday, the ECB stepped up efforts to boost liquidity in the financial system,announcing it would provide five-week loans to commercial banks in a series ofspecial auctions. The ECB said there was "no pre-set amount" of euros it would lendthrough the auctions, and signaled it was ready to take further actions to boostliquidity in the euro-zone banking system.

"The ECB will continue to steer liquidity toward balanced conditions in a way whichis consistent with the objective to keep very short-term rates close to the minimumbid rate," the central bank said in a statement.

The Bank of Japan and the Reserve Bank of Australia also took steps to pump upliquidity, and central banks around the world have poured billions of dollars intothe financial system through short-term loans in an effort to ease tight money-marketconditions in recent weeks.

The Bank of England on Friday responded to pressure from banks to provide additionalliquidity through three-month loans.

The interbank lending market plays a key role in the financial system, allowingbanks to tap short-term loans to fund ongoing operations. If the system fails tooperate, banks can have trouble meeting short-term obligations, potentially leadingto failed banks and frozen credit markets.

But banks, already loaded down with their own troubled assets, are worried that theycould find counterparties insolvent. As a result, they've been afraid to lend to eachother since the collapse of Lehman Brothers earlier this month.

"Market participants are reluctant to engage in transactions with each other becauseof heightened counterparty risk and fear that they could be the next in line toexperience a 'bank run' and therefore need all the liquidity they can getthemselves," wrote economists at Danske Bank in Copenhagen.

Such fears left Bradford &amp; Bingley and Fortis struggling for funding. Theirsubsequent collapse then contributed to further tensions in the money market.

Amid the money-market tensions, central banks have been "forced to get more and moreactive in providing liquidity to the market because the market isn't doing itinternally," said Don Smith, an economist at brokerage firm ICAP.

"It's a continued escalation of the degree of support the central banks areproviding in terms of liquidity for the money markets, and I don't think there's verymuch expectation the direction is going to reverse," he said. "There's no sense ofany fundamental improvement in conditions at all."

The Danske economists said the U.S. bailout plan goes to the core of the financialsector's problems by removing uncertainty over future write-downs of mortgage assets,but they acknowledged that the plan has so far done little to soothe tensions inshort-term debt markets.

"The strains in money markets have reached unprecedented levels and the risk is thatinvestors and market participants have lost faith that the medicine will work," theysaid, in a research note. "The current crisis has evolved into a confidence crisiswhich could become self-fulfilling."

But Crescenzi noted that past financial crises left key gauges of money-markettensions elevated for some time.

Both the so-called TED spread, which is the difference between the yield onthree-month Treasury bills and market interest rates, and the spread between theLibor rate and fed funds peaked two months after the 1987 stock market crash and the1998 credit crisis, he said, in a research note.

"It is human nature for frayed nerves to take time to heal after a shock -- healingof any kind is more a process than an event," he said.

The greatest transfer of wealth in history (from those who hold their money in paper to those that don't) took a GREAT LEAP forward since the last edition of this newsletter. The wall of money which will someday become known as the great REFLATION began in earnest in the last two weeks. The MONETARY flooding we anticipated then has now MATERIALIZED and the initial BLANK checks have been written. A whopper of a BLANK check is due to arrive sometime in the next week (I am writing this on a Sunday morning) when the BAILOUT of the biggest banks and brokers in the world is FINALIZED and we actually get to see 120 pages of POLITICAL compromises. A political compromise means political supporters will BENEFIT while the PUBLIC gets FLEECED...

...prepare yourself for what you can expect over the next few days. Expect to see the stock market decline day after day so that a panic atmosphere is created so that the pawns will give in and approve the package. This will not necessarily entail any intervention. For the stock market to fall under its own weight it merely has to be left free of the almost daily intervention that has kept zombie companies and the major indices afloat. The small benefit the average US citizen can expect from the bailout is that the financial system will not come undone now but rather slightly later. ..

At this writing, the nation is embroiled in a financial "crisis." All of the newspapers and TV are screaming that the economy is on the edge of "systemic risk." By this is meant that, if the people of American do not give $700 billion to certain Wall Street firms, our entire economic system will collapse. The source of this dire prediction is one man, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson....

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- How did I become rich and famous while toiling as a wageslave in the impecunious trade of financial journalism? When my grandchildren askthis question, I will be able to reply: by writing two articles that prevented thefinancial meltdown, and likely recession, of 2008.

Sort of.

I really did co-write the first one, for Forbes magazine on Jan. 4, 1993. TheFederal Reserve Bank of Boston had just published a study purporting to provedefinitively that mortgage lenders were discriminating against minorities, the hotcause of the day.

But when my brilliant co-author, Leslie Spencer, asked the Boston Fed's researchdirector, Alicia H. Munnell, what minority default rates were, she said proudly thatcensus tract data showed that they were equal to whites. When Leslie pointed out thatthis actually proved there was no discrimination, because the lenders had somehowweeded out the credit risks down to the same acceptable level, Munnell wasdumbfounded and had to concede (on tape) that she did not, in fact, have definitiveproof of discrimination at all.

We had discovered a fundamental technical flaw. We sat back and waited for ourPulitzer Prizes.

Nothing happened. The Boston Fed study continued to be cited by press andpoliticians. Alicia Munnell was apotheosized into the Clinton administration.

Partly this was because Forbes magazine, albeit then very successful, just didn'tfigure in the media food chain. Its readership seemed to be confined to 750,000retired dentists. That mattered, in the dark days before the Internet.

But mostly nobody wanted to know. Subsequently, University of Texas economists StanJ. Liebowitz and Ted Day demonstrated that the study's own data was riddled witherrors. Nobody paid any attention to them, either.

That's a bipartisan "nobody," by the way. Questioned later about the Boston Fedstudy, a Bush Fed governor just smirked and said he was sure the banks would makemoney. If anything, pressure on the financial industry to make marginal loansincreased under George II, part of his Latino outreach strategy.

I don't want to say I told them so. But I (we) did.

Of course, the financial industry was all too happy to be pressured. It no doubtfigured it could make commissions and, if there was trouble, the government wouldbail it out.

And guess what?

This brings me to my second rich-and-famous making article, on the 1998Fed-orchestrated bailout of Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund.

Which, I have to admit, I didn't actually write. I could never interest any editorin it. But they were wrong and I was right. (Notice a pattern?) LTCM was the currentbailout in microcosm.

I was fascinated by the LTCM bailout. I couldn't figure out why the Fed needed torescue a relatively small firm. But two excellent books "When Genius Failed" and"Inventing Money," respectively by Roger Lowenstein and Nicholas Dunbar (who reallydo deserve to be rich and famous) provided a lot of damning detail, albeit withoutdrawing conclusions.

Bottom line: LTCM seems to have been bailed out because it was well-connected. Itsconnections were significantly to Goldman Sachs, which in turn was extremelywell-connected to federal government. Its former CEO, Robert Rubin, was TreasurySecretary at the time.

By an amazing coincidence, another former Goldman CEO, Henry Paulsen, isorchestrating the current bailout.

Significantly, the books revealed that LTCM has made itself the "chosen instrument"of, for example, the Italian government in its efforts to groom the Italian bondmarket in order to join the Euro. LTCM repeatedly cornered the Italian bond marketwith the Italian government's tacit connivance, even though this was devastating toItalian small investors.

Dunbar wrote of LTCM that by the end of 1997: "Governments treated it as a valuedpartner, to be used whenever markets weren't efficient enough to achievemacroeconomic goals."

My questions: What governments? What goals? Are subprime mortgages just a laterexample?

How long has this sort of collusion been going on?

After the Panic of 1907, the U.S. Congress set up the Pujo Committee to investigatethe so-called "money trust."

Of course, that resulted in the Federal Reserve, which arguably is now part of theproblem.

There are reports that "martial law" has been declared in Congress. A cursory investigation reveals that this means that the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has summarily declared that the normal rules of procedure that govern legislation in the House have been suspended.

It is unclear whether a similar suspension of the rule of law has taken place in the Senate.

This is government by total fiat under the color of an "emergency". That is to say, dictatorship.

“My message to the American people don’t let Congress seal this deal. High financial crimes have been committed.”

“The normal legislative process has been shelved. Only a few insiders are doing the dealing, sounds like insider trading to me. These criminals have so much political power than can shut down the normal legislative process of the highest law making body of this land.”

“We are Constitutionally sworn to protect and defend this Republic against all enemies foreign and domestic. And my friends there are enemies.”

“The people pushing this deal are the very ones who are responsible for the implosion on Wall Street. They were fraudulent then and they are fraudulent now.”

Y'know, I was saying to myself, "Self, if we lived in NYC we would organize a protest right on Wall Street in front of the NYSE." Since I hadn't heard of one happenening from the MSM, I assumed that there hadn't been one...WRONG! Man, wish I coulda been there!

End the Fed (endthefed@sbcglobal.net) has sent you this article. Personal Message: Reuters.com - Wachovia bank in talks to be bought: sources http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSTRE48R45R20080928 This service is not intended to encourage spam. The details provided by your colleague have been used for the sole purpose of facilitating this email communication and have not been retained by Thomson Reuters. Your personal details have not been added to any database or mailing list. If you would like to receive news articles delivered to your email address, please subscribe at http://www.reuters.com/newsmails

End the Fed (endthefed@sbcglobal.net) has sent you this article. Personal Message: Reuters.com - Goldman seeks to buy up to $50 billion in assets: report http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSTRE48R4KZ20080928 This service is not intended to encourage spam. The details provided by your colleague have been used for the sole purpose of facilitating this email communication and have not been retained by Thomson Reuters. Your personal details have not been added to any database or mailing list. If you would like to receive news articles delivered to your email address, please subscribe at http://www.reuters.com/newsmails

End the Fed (endthefed@sbcglobal.net) has sent you this article. Personal Message: Reuters.com - UK set to nationalize B&B bank, may sell savings http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSTRE48Q1Z520080928 This service is not intended to encourage spam. The details provided by your colleague have been used for the sole purpose of facilitating this email communication and have not been retained by Thomson Reuters. Your personal details have not been added to any database or mailing list. If you would like to receive news articles delivered to your email address, please subscribe at http://www.reuters.com/newsmails

Democratic congressional leaders announced their agreement Sunday on details of a massive financial rescue plan proposed by the Bush administration, releasing a draft text trumpeting taxpayer guarantees and caps on executive compensation. ...Read the rest of the story

Friday, September 26, 2008

Yesterday, Ron Paul sent out a letter warning of the dangers of the Paulson and Bernanke bailout plan and asking you to contact your representatives and senators. A vote on this bill could literally come at any moment, and it is crucial that you immediately express your opinion to Congress.

The picture painted by the supporters of the bailout is dire. President Bush reinforced this notion in his address to the nation last night and again urged Congress to act immediately.

Remember what happened the last time the executive branch warned of horrible consequences and rushed legislation through Congress? We got the Patriot Act, which to this day threatens our civil liberties on an unprecedented scale.

We do know that our economy is in for a rough ride. These bad mortgage-related assets will have to be cleared out and the market will have to reset. The only question is how that will happen.

The easy way out is to continue the same practices that got us to this point. We can put $700 billion, for starters, in the hands of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (a former CEO of Goldman Sachs) and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and let them spend the money on whatever they wish.

This option will only delay the economic downturn, which will only be worsened.

Or, we can take this opportunity to end the federal government's interference in the marketplace, truly embrace free market capitalism, and return to a sound monetary system.

The Federal Reserve's practices of easy credit and monetary inflation have crashed our economy, and now they're asking us to trust them to fix it.

When you call Congress to express your outrage at the bailout, tell them you want real solutions.

It is time for Congress to:

1.) *End the Bailouts* - Congress must revoke the Federal Reserve's authority to bail out failed businesses at your expense.

2.) *Cut Taxes and Curb Regulation* - If we really want to stimulate businesses and revive the market, we need to cut corporate and capital gains taxes, spurring investors to come back to the market and making it easier to attract new workers and clients. It is also time to end failed legislation like Sarbanes-Oxley, which has crippled capital markets, diminished our competitiveness, and greatly harmed small businesses.

3.) *Reduce Spending* - We must freeze all non-entitlement spending by the federal government at current levels and eliminate wasteful spending both domestically and in our trillion-dollar overseas budget. Our debt has to come down, and it won't until we start living within our means.

4.) *Reform the Monetary System* - If we are to have long-term economic progress, we must end the system of printing money out of thin air. The current laws limiting the circulation of gold and silver-backed currency must be overturned. We can no longer base our money on the empty promises of bureaucrats that it is sound.

The federal government is trying to scare us into accepting more tyranny. Don't stand for it.

End the Fed (endthefed@sbcglobal.net) has sent you this article. Personal Message: Reuters.com - Central banks dish out more cash as money markets freeze http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSTRE48P1U220080926 This service is not intended to encourage spam. The details provided by your colleague have been used for the sole purpose of facilitating this email communication and have not been retained by Thomson Reuters. Your personal details have not been added to any database or mailing list. If you would like to receive news articles delivered to your email address, please subscribe at http://www.reuters.com/newsmails

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Minutes after the President spoke, reports began circulating on the internet [from credible news outlets, I might add] that Chinese regulators have instructed domestic banks to stop lending to American banks in the inter-bank money markets:

China asks local lenders not to lend to U.S. banks:report

By V. Phani KumarLast update: 10:28 p.m. EDT Sept. 24, 2008HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Chinese regulators have asked domestic banks to stop lending to U.S. financial institutions in the interbank money markets to prevent possible losses during the financial crisis, the South China Morning Post reported Thursday. The China Banking Regulatory Commission's ban on interbank lending of all currencies applied to U.S. banks, but not to lenders from other countries, the report added, citing a source.

In the largest bank failure in U.S. history, Washington Mutual Inc. succumbed Thursday to the fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis, was seized by federal regulators and rapidly acquired by J.P. Morgan Chase for $1.9 billion. ...Read the rest of the story

Chuck Baldwin September 26, 2008 NewsWithViews.comAt the time of this writing, the U.S. House and Senate are poised to pass a $700 billion bailout to Wall Street. At the behest of President George W. Bush, the U.S. taxpayers are going to be on the hook for what can only be referred to as the biggest fraud in U.S. history.Virtually our entire financial system is based on an illusion. We spend more than we earn, we consume more than we produce, we borrow more than we save, and we cling to the fantasy that this can go on forever. The glue that holds this crumbling scheme together is a fiat currency known as the Federal Reserve Note, which was created out of thin air by an international banking cartel called the Federal Reserve.According to Congressman Ron Paul, in the last three years, the Federal Reserve has created over $4 trillion in new money. The result of all this "money-out-of-thin-air" fraud is never-ending inflation. And the more prices rise, the more the dollar collapses. Folks, this is not sustainable.Already, Bear Stearns was awarded a $29 billion bailout, followed quickly by the bailout of Freddie and Fannie that will cost the taxpayers up to $200 billion. Then the Fed announced the bailout of AIG to the tune of $85 billion. Mind you, AIG is an enormous global entity with assets totaling more than $1.1 trillion. Moreover, the Feds agreed to pump $180 billion into global money markets. And the Treasury Department promised $50 billion to insure the holdings of money market mutual funds for a year. Now, taxpayers are being asked to provide $700 billion to Wall Street. (I hope readers are aware that, not only will American banks be bailed out, but foreign banks will also be bailed out. Then again, at least half of the Federal Reserve is comprised of foreign banks, anyway.) In other words, the Federal Reserve is preparing to spend upwards of $1 trillion or more. Remember again, this is fiat money, meaning it is money printed out of thin air.All of this began when the U.S. Congress abrogated its responsibility to maintain sound money principles on behalf of the American people (as required by the Constitution) and created the Federal Reserve. This took place in 1913. The President was Woodrow Wilson. (I strongly encourage readers to buy G. Edward Griffin's book, The Creature from Jekyll Island.) Since then, the U.S. economy has suffered through one Great Depression and several recessions--all of which have been orchestrated by this international banking cartel. Now, we are facing total economic collapse.But don't worry: the international bankers will lose nothing--not even their bonuses. They will maintain their mansions, yachts, private jets, and Swiss bank accounts. No matter how bad it gets on Main Street, the banksters on Wall Street will still have the best of it--President Bush and the Congress will make sure of that. This is one thing Republicans and Democrats can agree on.

America's founders were rightfully skeptical of granting too much power to bankers. Thomas Jefferson said, "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."Jefferson also believed that "banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."Daniel Webster warned, "Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effectual than that which deludes them with paper money."Webster also said, "We are in danger of being overwhelmed with irredeemable paper, mere paper, representing not gold nor silver; no, Sir, representing nothing but broken promises, bad faith, bankrupt corporations, cheated creditors, and a ruined people."Our first and greatest President George Washington said, "Paper money has had the effect in your State [Rhode Island] that it ever will have, to ruin commerce--oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice."If George W. Bush, John McCain, or Barack Obama had any honesty and integrity, they would approach the current banking malady in much the same way that President Andrew Jackson did. In discussing the Bank Renewal bill with a delegation of bankers in 1832, Jackson said, "Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time, and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out."

What President Andrew Jackson said to the bankers in 1832 is exactly what an American President should say to these criminal international bankers today. But what George Bush, John McCain, and Barack Obama want to do is provide amnesty for the international bankers, just as they want to provide amnesty for illegal aliens. I say, No amnesty for Wall Street, and no amnesty for illegal aliens, either. Instead of sending these banksters on extended vacations to the Bahamas with millions of taxpayer dollars in their pockets, we should be sending them straight to jail!

CFTC Relents and Probes Silver Market http://www.wsj.com/article/SB122231175151874367.htmlPersistent Complaints of Foul Play Draw the Still-Skeptical Agency to InvestigateWith silver prices falling this past summer, silver bugs world-wide set out to prove that their metal was in short supply and market manipulation was at work. They bombarded federal regulators with hundreds of emails crying foul play and demanded answers.

Though such pleas proved futile in the past, this time the rousing chorus grabbed regulators' attention. On Wednesday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission confirmed that there's an investigation into the silver market.

The CFTC isn't yet convinced there's systemic wrongdoing and in May published a report saying as much. But the agency decided to take a fresh look, in part to show critics that it checks out complaints, and also to make sure there isn't something new to uncover.

"We take the threat of manipulation in the futures and options markets very seriously and employ a number of measures to prevent, identify and prosecute it," said Stephen Obie, acting director of the agency's division of enforcement.

Silver investors have argued that a handful of U.S. banks have been controlling a large portion of silver's short positions -- or bets that prices will decline -- on Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Official data from the CFTC showed that two U.S. banks had increased short positions in the silver futures market between July and August by 450% and controlled 25% of the total open interest.

"The proof that this selloff was criminal lies in public data," wrote Theodore Butler of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, in August in a silver newsletter. "The concentrated sale of such quantities in such a short time" caused silver's fall, wrote Mr. Butler, who for many years has been vocal about purported silver-market manipulation. In September he reiterated to readers that they should email the CFTC. [CFTC: Chilton, Bart <mailto:BChilton@CFTC.gov> ...Mr. Chilton has been very professional & helpful...CV]

The CFTC had argued in May that the large banks that people assailed for manipulating the market were instead acting appropriately as market makers, who take on futures positions to offset their exposure in over-the-counter markets. Therefore, these traders aren't "naked shorts" and won't benefit from long-term depressed silver prices. Many analysts agree with the agency's conclusion.

Silver stalwarts weren't persuaded. Jason Hommel, a newsletter writer based in Penn Valley, Calif., directed readers to visit their local coin shops at 2 p.m. on Sept. 2 to size up for themselves whether there was a silver shortage. From Michigan to North Carolina and beyond, he says, investors trekked to coin shops. Many reported no silver for sale.

Bart Chilton, one of the CFTC commissioners, said he has received about 700 emails from silver investors since August, far more than the estimated 100 he received from May to July. Mr. Chilton, a Democrat who has criticized the CFTC as doing a poor job communicating with consumers, says he has spent nights and weekends personally answering emails.

Historically, silver has been a volatile market. This year it saw a near-50% drop and remains down 9.5% on the year. Gold is up 6.5%. The agency has long heard from frustrated silver investors. In 2004, it published an open letter by Michael Gorham, then the agency's director of market oversight, after receiving more than 500 letters and emails from silver investors.

That the enforcement rather than oversight division is taking on the issue marks a difference from the CFTC's previous efforts regarding the silver market. The oversight division performs overall market surveillance. The enforcement division looks at activities in a specific time period.

Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Negotiations on a $700 billion financial-rescue plan hit a snag after a White House meeting that included presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said the agreement in principle he had reached earlier in the day with some Republicans was later undermined by a proposal offered by House Republicans led by Representative Eric Cantor.

J.P. Morgan to buy WaMu's operations: report SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- J.P. Morgan & Chase Co. (JPM: 44.05, +3.55, +8.8%) will acquire most of Washington Mutual Inc.'s operations, according to a report published late Thursday. The online edition of The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported that the exact structure of the transaction remains unclear. Washington Mutual (WM: 1.69, -0.57, -25.2%) , once the largest U.S. thrift, has been scrambling to find a solution to its surplus of bad mortgage loans, and put itself up for sale at auction last week, the report said

JP Morgan, the leading investment bank that created the mortgage backed securities derivatives bubble and destroyed the balance sheets of commercial banks such as Washington Mutual, is now transforming itself into a commercial bank. Now they are buying the bank they helped destroy...such an easy way to become a commercial bank now!

U.S. Mint suspends Buffalo gold coins after depletionhttp://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=7ef5202a-15d8-4a2e-ae85-4128914674e1 NEW YORK - The U.S Mint said Thursday it was temporarily suspending sales of American Buffalo 24-karat gold one-ounce bullion coins because strong demand depleted its inventory. "Demand has exceeded supply for American Buffalo 24-karat gold one-ounce bullion coins, and our inventories have been depleted. We are, therefore, temporarily suspending sales of these coins," the Mint said in a memorandum to authorized American Buffalo dealers. The Mint also told dealers that it would work to build up its inventory to resume sales shortly. In mid-August, a shortage of American Eagle one-ounce gold coins due to "unprecedented" demand had also forced the U.S. Mint to temporarily suspend sales of the popular coins. The Mint said Thursday it would continue to supply the American Eagle 22-karat gold one-ounce and American Eagle silver bullion coins on an allocation basis to coin dealers. In addition, the half-ounce, quarter-ounce, and 1-10th ounce American Eagle gold coins and American Eagle platinum were also available, the Mint said. Coin dealers from the United States to Canada have recently reported a surge in buying of bullion coins and other gold products as troubles in the financial markets prompted people to seek a safe haven in precious metals. On Thursday, the U.S. gold contract for December delivery ended down $13 or 1.5 percent at $882 an ounce on the COMEX division of the NYMEX, while spot gold traded at $873 an ounce. Bullion hit an all-time high of $1,030.80 an ounce on March 17.

``We doubt that any sale will occur without massive assistance from theFDIC, which normally waits until a failure,'' Egan-Jones Ratings Co. wrotein a report yesterday. ``Without timely assistance, WaMu will fail.''

The financial meltdown the economists of the Austrian School predicted has arrived.

We are in this crisis because of an excess of artificially created credit at the hands of the Federal Reserve System. The solution being proposed? More artificial credit by the Federal Reserve. No liquidation of bad debt and malinvestment is to be allowed. By doing more of the same, we will only continue and intensify the distortions in our economy - all the capital misallocation, all the malinvestment - and prevent the market's attempt to re-establish rational pricing of houses and other assets.

Last night the president addressed the nation about the financial crisis. There is no point in going through his remarks line by line, since I'd only be repeating what I've been saying over and over - not just for the past several days, but for years and even decades.

Still, at least a few observations are necessary.

The president assures us that his administration "is working with Congress to address the root cause behind much of the instability in our markets." Care to take a guess at whether the Federal Reserve and its money creation spree were even mentioned?

We are told that "low interest rates" led to excessive borrowing, but we are not told how these low interest rates came about. They were a deliberate policy of the Federal Reserve. As always, artificially low interest rates distort the market. Entrepreneurs engage in malinvestments - investments that do not make sense in light of current resource availability, that occur in more temporally remote stages of the capital structure than the pattern of consumer demand can support, and that would not have been made at all if the interest rate had been permitted to tell the truth instead of being toyed with by the Fed.

Not a word about any of that, of course, because Americans might then discover how the great wise men in Washington caused this great debacle. Better to keep scapegoating the mortgage industry or "wildcat capitalism" (as if we actually have a pure free market!).

Speaking about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the president said: "Because these companies were chartered by Congress, many believed they were guaranteed by the federal government. This allowed them to borrow enormous sums of money, fuel the market for questionable investments, and put our financial system at risk."

Doesn't that prove the foolishness of chartering Fannie and Freddie in the first place? Doesn't that suggest that maybe, just maybe, government may have contributed to this mess? And of course, by bailing out Fannie and Freddie, hasn't the federal government shown that the "many" who "believed they were guaranteed by the federal government" were in fact correct?

Then come the scare tactics. If we don't give dictatorial powers to the Treasury Secretary "the stock market would drop even more, which would reduce the value of your retirement account. The value of your home could plummet." Left unsaid, naturally, is that with the bailout and all the money and credit that must be produced out of thin air to fund it, the value of your retirement account will drop anyway, because the value of the dollar will suffer a precipitous decline. As for home prices, they are obviously much too high, and supply and demand cannot equilibrate if government insists on propping them up.

It's the same destructive strategy that government tried during the Great Depression: prop up prices at all costs. The Depression went on for over a decade. On the other hand, when liquidation was allowed to occur in the equally devastating downturn of 1921, the economy recovered within less than a year.

The president also tells us that Senators McCain and Obama will join him at the White House today in order to figure out how to get the bipartisan bailout passed. The two senators would do their country much more good if they stayed on the campaign trail debating who the bigger celebrity is, or whatever it is that occupies their attention these days.

F.A. Hayek won the Nobel Prize for showing how central banks' manipulation of interest rates creates the boom-bust cycle with which we are sadly familiar. In 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, he described the foolish policies being pursued in his day - and which are being proposed, just as destructively, in our own:

Instead of furthering the inevitable liquidation of the maladjustments brought about by the boom during the last three years, all conceivable means have been used to prevent that readjustment from taking place; and one of these means, which has been repeatedly tried though without success, from the earliest to the most recent stages of depression, has been this deliberate policy of credit expansion.

To combat the depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to cure the evil by the very means which brought it about; because we are suffering from a misdirection of production, we want to create further misdirection - a procedure that can only lead to a much more severe crisis as soon as the credit expansion comes to an end... It is probably to this experiment, together with the attempts to prevent liquidation once the crisis had come, that we owe the exceptional severity and duration of the depression.

The only thing we learn from history, I am afraid, is that we do not learn from history.

The very people who have spent the past several years assuring us that the economy is fundamentally sound, and who themselves foolishly cheered the extension of all these novel kinds of mortgages, are the ones who now claim to be the experts who will restore prosperity! Just how spectacularly wrong, how utterly without a clue, does someone have to be before his expert status is called into question?

Oh, and did you notice that the bailout is now being called a "rescue plan"? I guess "bailout" wasn't sitting too well with the American people.

The very people who with somber faces tell us of their deep concern for the spread of democracy around the world are the ones most insistent on forcing a bill through Congress that the American people overwhelmingly oppose. The very fact that some of you seem to think you're supposed to have a voice in all this actually seems to annoy them.

I continue to urge you to contact your representatives and give them a piece of your mind. I myself am doing everything I can to promote the correct point of view on the crisis. Be sure also to educate yourselves on these subjects - the Campaign for Liberty blog is an excellent place to start. Read the posts, ask questions in the comment section, and learn.

H.G. Wells once said that civilization was in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have.

Dodd says fundamental agreement on bailout bill(Reuters) - The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee said House of Representatives and Senate negotiators have reached "fundamental agreement" on a set of principles guiding a Wall Street bailout bill.

Sen. Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, emerged from a morning-long meeting on Thursday with top House and Senate lawmakers to tell reporters that he thought Congress could act within the "next few days" to pass a bill.

Dodd did not provide details on the major areas of contention that have been under negotiation

110th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 2755 To abolish the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks, to repeal the Federal Reserve Act, and for other purposes. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

June 15, 2007 Mr. PAUL introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Financial Services

A BILL To abolish the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks, to repeal the Federal Reserve Act, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act'.

SEC. 2. FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD ABOLISHED.

(a) In General- Effective at the end of the 1-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and each Federal reserve bank are hereby abolished.

(b) Repeal of Federal Reserve Act- Effective at the end of the 1-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act, the Federal Reserve Act is hereby repealed.

(c) Disposition of Affairs-

(1) MANAGEMENT DURING DISSOLUTION PERIOD- During the 1-year period referred to in subsection (a), the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System--

(A) shall, for the sole purpose of winding up the affairs of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks--

(i) manage the employees of the Board and each such bank and provide for the payment of compensation and benefits of any such employee which accrue before the position of such employee is abolished; and

(ii) manage the assets and liabilities of the Board and each such bank until such assets and liabilities are liquidated or assumed by the Secretary of the Treasury in accordance with this subsection; and

(B) may take such other action as may be necessary, subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, to wind up the affairs of the Board and the Federal reserve banks.

(2) LIQUIDATION OF ASSETS-

(A) IN GENERAL- The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall liquidate all assets of the Board and the Federal reserve banks in an orderly manner so as to achieve as expeditious a liquidation as may be practical while maximizing the return to the Treasury.

(B) TRANSFER TO TREASURY- After satisfying all claims against the Board and any Federal reserve bank which are accepted by the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and redeeming the stock of such banks, the net proceeds of the liquidation under subparagraph (A) shall be transferred to the Secretary of the Treasury and deposited in the General Fund of the Treasury.

(3) ASSUMPTION OF LIABILITIES- All outstanding liabilities of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks at the time such entities are abolished, including any liability for retirement and other benefits for former officers and employees of the Board or any such bank in accordance with employee retirement and benefit programs of the Board and any such bank, shall become the liability of the Secretary of the Treasury and shall be paid from amounts deposited in the general fund pursuant to paragraph (2) which are hereby appropriated for such purpose until all such liabilities are satisfied.

(d) Report- At the end of the 18-month period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall submit a joint report to the Congress containing a detailed description of the actions taken to implement this Act and any actions or issues relating to such implementation that remain uncompleted or unresolved as of the date of the report.

Libor Soars on Concern Bank Bailout Will Be DilutedSept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Money-market rates around the world soared on mounting concern the U.S. Treasury's $700 billion bailout plan will be diluted as it makes its way through Congress, causing financial institutions to hoard cash.

The three-month London interbank offered rate, or Libor, that banks charge each other for dollar loans jumped today by the most since 1999 and the euro rate rose to the highest level since November 2000. Rates in Hong Kong and Singapore climbed as Bank of East Asia Ltd. faced a run on deposits. The difference between the three-month dollar rate and the overnight indexed swap rate, the Libor-OIS spread, widened to the most on record.

``Liquidity in the money markets in maturities over a week is desperately scarce,'' said Tim Bond, head of global asset allocation at Barclays Capital in London. ``A near-term solution to the crisis is urgent. Unchecked, the current crisis would turn into a self-reinforcing vortex of defaults, bank capital contraction and deep recession within a matter of weeks.''...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=awv1QKvaA708&refer=homeIf this is the case the $700 billion payoff to the U.S. Financial oligarchy will do little to alleviate the crisis. It is important to remember that the Mortgage Backed Securities are a TINY fraction of the Credit Derivatives, which total MORE THAN THE ENTIRE YEARLY GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT OF THE WORLD. The 700 bill only covers the mortgage related liabilities.

Era of U.S. financial dominance at an end: Germany BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany blamed the United States on Thursday for spawning the global financial crisis with a blind drive for higher profits and said it must now accept more market regulation and a loss of its financial superpower status.

In some of the harshest criticism of the United States since the crisis threw Wall Street banks into financial disarray this month, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck said the turmoil would leave "deep marks" on both sides of the Atlantic, but called it primarily an American problem.

"The world will never be as it was before the crisis," Steinbrueck told the Bundestag lower house of parliament.

"The United States will lose its superpower status in the world financial system. The world financial system will become more multi-polar," he said.

Bush meeting with McCain, Obama on rescueWASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- As the world watches for progress on the massive rescue plan in Washington, the Bush administration plans to meet Thursday with presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama as well as with leaders of Congress.

Notice this “unity” theme lately? McBama and Obain meet on 911 at Ground Zero and have a joint Global War on Terror support rally. McBama and Obain both have gone on recently about on about coming together “as Americans” to “solve this problem. And now the Prostitute in Chief facilitates a Unity Summit to show lockstep solidarity on the day they hand over $700 billion dollars to the banksters along with all the power they could ever dream of. Maybe they will join hands, sway from side to side and sing “We are the World” while they are at it?